to want to get on with our lives now

[WantsALife]

DP and I have been living together for a year now, and are thinking about starting a family. We're currently renting a nice place, but I want to get us settled in our own home before we start TTC.

DP is quite careful with money (though is generous), and says he wants to wait, because in his words 'the housing market is due for a big drop and I'm not handing over my hard earned to pay off other peoples mortgages'. We're in our early thirties, and he has saved up about 90k (I have about 20k). We both have reasonable paid jobs - not brilliant but with the deposit money could get a cheap mortgage easily.

He won't do it though, and says that I'm not thinking long term and that if we keep saving we'll get a good place with little or no mortgage eventually, or that or 'everyone's wages will have to explode' . Aargh - I just want to get our lives started! AIBU?

Also, what if you have trouble conceiving? Fertility treatment could potentially cost thousands of pounds. Better to have the savings than have it all gone on a house.

"I know him well enough to know he's not the sort of person to walk away from responsibilities to DCs."

hmmm... I bet there are plenty of others who have thought that too..

I do also think it maybe a case of the money you have burning a hole in your pocket - which again I fully understand - you've saved and saved and done really well and you just want to spend it on something, i would be the same. But when you have somebody saying no just wait it would be frustrating.

Squeaky, that is unfair to him. Whatever I might think about him at the moment, he is a good man.

Have you pointed out that if you are on maternity leave you will only get a mortgage based on his wage, not yours as very few mortgage providers will provide a mortgage to a woman on maternity leave as you might not go back to work (rediculous, a friend last year even had the paperwork from her work showing her return date but they could only get a stupid high rate that would accept her wage too - she ended up going back to work 2 months earlier than she otherwise would do so they could get a good deal on the mortgage)

I would say you'll have a baby in a rented place and see what he says. We moved when I was pregnant, I also had a DH who wanted to call the bottom of the market, however he realised that we needed my full time wage to be taken into account, leaving it any later would mean we could never get the 3 bed house we wanted. In the last 3 years, our house in the South East has increased in value by about £60k. If we'd waited, we'd not be able to afford it even if I was still working full time.

That's about it going! I've saved up too - ok, not by being as tight careful as him, and want to use it. He just maintains it'll buy more house in future. Anyway, we'll see if we can find a compromise.

and children are portable they are able to move with you when you decide you want to move elsewhere

He is very anti-mortgage in general dontmind. His opinion is we won't need one if we keep saving - and tbf we are still able to put away quite a bit each month.

Does he ever listen to your opinion?

It all seems to be what he wants here..

And I am not being unfair, I am just suggesting that you protect yourself, and marriage IS protection. Nobody can predict the future, but by being married it gives you a hell of a lot more of a safety net if something does go wrong. It is only a piece of paper yes, but it also means you have more rights.

Not on this squeaky . Everything else in life though yes - we have a good balance.

also sorry to keep coming back to this but interest rates will go up at some point, so some of the interest on your 90K if you are clever with it would help pay the rent.

Be a little careful about overplanning - there are no guarantees that you would easily conceive. Is there a compromise - could you wait a little longer and TTC at the same time? He would most likely chage his priorities once he sees his baby?

Keep saving, right now cut everything back to the bone for 12 months and save every penny you can. Agree to have DCs in a rented place and say you want to give it 12 months then start for a family, if he can't work to that time frame you will leave him - you are in your 30s, you can't wait for a man who's waiting for some golden moment when everything's perfect.

Keep your savings separate. If you wanted to buy a property, you can get yourself in the situation where you can buy by yourself, he can then decide where he wants to live and/or if he wants to put his money with yours and buy something bigger.

If you get yourself in a good financial position, there's no reason why he gets to make the final decision about this.

Actually he's very good with it goingup - he's constantly surfing savings accounts etc! He mentioned that interest on it was around 300 p/m - which is over a third of our rent at the mo. I'm earning about 70 on mine too. But savings rates keep dropping and it's a lot of work.

Point taken though don't mind and squeaky. Like I said, we have to have a chat.

I know him well enough to know he's not the sort of person to walk away from responsibilities to DCs

No you don't. No-one does. Read some of the threads on here about women who suddenly find out their husband/partner is having an affair, he leaves with promises to 'do the right thing' which soon evaporate into them being at total arseholes with money.

I'm not handing over my hard earned to pay off other peoples mortgages

But you're renting now. So you are handing over your hard earned to pay off someone else's mortgage. Your landlord's.

What is value?

That's quite wishy washy.

What's his figure?

In your shoes, I'd be saying ok, fine, what exactly is 'value'? What is the house price that you feel is reasonable. In pounds. When the price of a 3 bed house in X hits £X, we will buy. And what about inflation? Are you factoring that in?

I would not have children with this man without marrying him. He sounds incredibly financially controlling, and obviously doesn't value your opinions in this area. He could walk away and leave you high and dry, and poor.

on the 'housing crash' theory..... he's just plain wrong. There is never going to be a price crash in the UK unless we build millions more homes, demand outstrips supply. So despite huge drops in most peoples real incomes, unemployment, repossessions etc over the last few years the housing market has not 'crashed' and if it didn't in the last 5 years then the chance of it doing so in the next ten is about the same as an asteroid hitting the earth...
Btbh (as most other posters have noted) is this about mortgages or babies? Because I like many was in rented accommodation when I had my first and it was just fine...

As you say, you both need to have an honest chat about what you both really want. There's no point in making any future plans until you've done so.

Come clean time - apologies squeaky, alibaba, don't mind. This is a reverse AIBU. I would never leave my DC's or my partner without if we were to split.

Wilson, what I mean is that I am not paying over the odds for something that has been pushed up through silliness - basically, I'm not handing over our cash to pay for the over enthusiasm to borrow of others. I think you are plain wrong hettie - it's not a matter of supply and demand of homes - it's suppy and demand of credit. And that tap is off. My partner doesn't see this.

Hettie - There is the supply and demand but that doesn't stand in the scheme of the percentage of empty homes and when interest rates rise etc - There are so many factors in play that have been helping the market stay high, it may not crash but it will adjust over time to drop back to a 3 x joint salary range.